Forecast

Catholic church should ‘follow the Bible’

I must thank Scott Ventrella for his kind and thought-provoking response to my letter (“Response to letter on Catholic clergy,” Sept. 6).

Again, my appeal was that the ills of the Catholic Church could have been avoided had she stayed true to the Bible and not deviated into tradition with its unfortunate and unintended consequences.

Regarding the “vain repetitions” Jesus told His followers not to use when praying (Matthew 6:7, KJV), this is a good rendering of the Greek word meaning the babbling and senseless multiplication of words done in the heathen thought that God will only hear us by our much speaking.

In my letter, I was not thinking of repeating a set prayer, such as the Lord’s Prayer, which follows in Matthew 6. After all, Jesus prayed the same way three times in Gethsemane.

But the Rosary, whose very decades are so repetitious that they must be tallied on a string of beads, unavoidably comes to mind.

Not to be further tedious to either Ventrella or the public, but turning again to the issue of long-standing and widespread clergy sex abuse and institutional cover-up, consider what damage could have been avoided had Rome never substituted priestly celibacy for the apostolic command that “a bishop…must be blameless, the husband of one wife…One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity” (I Timothy 3:2, 4).

Paul tells Titus that such a church leader must “be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly” (Titus 1:6).

The Bible says a bishop (overseer) must be married. The Catholic Church says he must not be.